Listening to Facundo Cabral these past days, I fell again into the spell of Vysotsky. Suddenly, by accident. A trobadour is killed and I just remember another singer who had not heard for years.

Most of western dancers discovered Vysotsky thanks to Twyla Tharp and the variation she choreographed for Baryshnikov in the film White Nights; we dancers are so sectarians, sometimes. We need to have it under our nose or we won’t see it. But Vysotsky was quite a character whose voice still turns our stomach. I’m back to his Horses by accident, how weird.

How can anyone take the horses into a full gallop, just to discover that the air is wrapping you in the race and cannot breathe? Because it is too late, says Vysotsky, and doesn’t know why, but there is no time to live and screams to be let at least finishing his song. And he wants to stop the horses, stop everything, godwatchesmyback, I leapt into the void and now my knees are trembling. He is right at the edge, he says, and wants to water his horses. Too late, my friend. You should have thought that before. Vysotsky was about to gallop through life and he knew it. Unstoppable.So powerful. How smart, Twyla Tharp.

I tried to write about Facundo Cabral and ended up with Vysotsky. I’m more into the complaint mood, even with a hand over my mouth, than into gratefully lament. I hope the Argentine troubadour will forgive me.